pounding, in respect to civil government, the foundations which have been obscured,-the civil and municipal discipline of the people, the simplicity of the ancient financial system, it shews the vanity of all modern discussion upon forms of government. In international affairs it asserts right and law, shewing each departure from it to be, not expediency" or "policy," but CRIME-a crime not only of one nation against another, but of the government of each nation against the people; and points out the remedy in Impeachment and Punishment of Ministers.

The periodical appearance of this work enables it to make to each passing event the application of the law; and though that law is not understood now, its value will come gradually to be appreciated by seeing its application. The value of the now doubted light will be acknowledged by the clearness given to the objects on which it is thrown.

The Portfolio, while assailing confusion within, and denouncing international wrongs, which render not only nation hostile to nation, but each government to its own people, signalizes continuously, and everywhere, that common enemy of Europe, who propagates the errors and the evils by which she profits. In a word, throughout the whole circle of political science, the Portfolio has imposed upon itself the duty of restoring the ancient basis and the fundamental principle of justice, which all good men must love, and by which every state, which deserves to live, must be regulated.

Convinced then of the greatness and the strength of the truths which you assert, and of the importance of their being known to France, and to the Continent of Europe, as much as to your country, we propose to undertake the reproduction at Paris of the "PORTFOLIO," preserving the title, which has become the flag under which the enemies of Russia and the friends of freedom alike can rally. We will not insert all the articles, and we will add original matter,

which, perhaps, you may reproduce; so that the community of sentiments may result in mutual assistance and co-operation. Your work is no more the enterprise of an exclusive and blind patriotism, then it is the work of an interested partizanship; and it is the work of men who have placed above all considerations the consideration of right, and who have taken for themselves, as the rule of their affections and of their hatreds, to hold every where upon earth the upright man as their friend-the unjust man as their enemy. Thus it is that we understand your enterprise, and so it is that we feel it important.

In writing these words, we are overwhelmed with the sense of weakness in so great an enterprise, and of the dearth of men in so populous a land. But the seed has power of growth, and who can tell what the harvest may be if it can only be disseminated. This favourable juncture presents itself, that the public has arrived at a mistrust of all existing authorities, without yet having fallen into listlessness and indifference. There are amongst the young men of France, some of future promise, who have themselves arrived at the conclusion, that it is not by theories and speculations, that the evils that they feel can be remedied, but by the restoration in each man of his own character.

We, by our co-operation, then associate France to your enterprise. That very association will give you more hold in England, will confirm your own friends in hope and in effort, and will break down, perhaps, in some degree, the real contempt of the frivolous, or the assumed contempt of the guilty, which prevents your words from being at once heard and responded to by a people whose interest it is no less to be just, than it is their pride to be free.

Our co-operation will further be of assistance, as furnishing a readier access to Germany, and through Germany as bearing more directly upon the East-and recent commu

nications with that country furnishes not only hope of cooperation, but evidences the anxiety for the appearance of the Portfolio in French.

We are satisfied that we undertake a work that is useful and may be great-and we recognize now, that if it does not become so, it will be our fault.

The former Portfolio appeared simultaneously in Paris and in London. It was published in both countries, with the view to a public end, and without co-operation from any external source. The public documents which therein appeared, produced a certain effect on the passing opinions of the nation, without having any useful or permanent results. There were no men called out from amongst the nation, separating themselves to adjoin themselves to the thoughts promulgated by this Periodical, or the labours it imposed. The re-appearance at the present time of the Portfolio in France is, therefore, wholly distinct from the reprint of the Portfolio at Paris in 1835-6. It proceeds not from us, it arises spontaneously in the midst of the French people.

At such a moment it is impossible not to recall the fact, that the first man who proclaimed the danger which threatens Europe, both in the enemy that assails, and in the corruption that destroys, was a Frenchman, M. Blacque, for years the publisher of a small paper at Smyrna, and afterwards the conductor of the Moniteur Ottoman, at Constantinople. He died, as there is very little doubt poisoned,* at Malta, on his way from Constantinople to

* The rumour was spread from the Russian Embassy, that M. Blacque had been poisoned by the English. It was in this form that the fact of his death was first announced at Constantinople. Those who do not understand that there may be men in the world whom it is worth Russia's while to get rid of would do well to consider that there are men whom it is worth her while to get posses

England, in 1836, while charged with a most important mission from the Sultan to King William the Fourth, to whose direct influence, and to whose convictions, the first appearance of the Portfolio was directly attributable. Of this man it was said by one of the Statesmen of France, "Had he returned to Paris he would have played a great part ;" and it was replied, "Had M. Blacque returned to France, he would have made France play a great part❞— and great is that nation whose fortune it is to possess such a man. It is not nations that make men, it is men that make nations. What might not be done in France by a single man, who, having the faculties to see the enormity of the danger, had the conscience also to suffer from the ignominy of its cause!

We are strengthened in these reflections by perusing the following passages from the pen of a French Statesman.

"Until the hour when France reawakens to do justice, it is the duty of every Frenchman who feels his own dignity, to protest against the common crime, and to protest everywhere and always,*—now by a complaint,—now by bitter reproach, as we protest to day. Each man has the right of speech, in order that he may not be smothered with his own horror and shame, and may with

sion of. Her Cabinet is composed not of Russians but of strangers and renegades, to whom a field of greatness and ambition is opened in Russia, because of knowledge or capacity, from which natives and nobles of Russia are excluded. Russia is no more Russia, than England is Englaud, and France France. Russia is her Cabinet-a few Greeks and Germans. England is Lord Aberdeen-France is M. Guizot. France or England is the man who is accidentally cast up into the Foreign Office-Russia is system built on science, and therefore unchangeable, save in its development.

* These words were parodied in M. Guizot's "La paix partout la paix toujours." Why did he not quote, "Iniquissimam pacem justissimo bello antefero."

draw his own obscure name from this partnership in celebrated infamy. Great souls and great nations have always judged and always proclaimed, that in presence of crimeto advance justice-to repair rights,—is not for those who devote themselves by calculation, but for those who march to the struggle veiling the statue of Destiny. Results depend upon circumstances effort, will, depends upon man. Neither his God nor his Descendants call him to account for circumstances, they call him to account for his conscience and his honour.

"Yet we must despise the age in which we live, for every where it has consecrated the triumph of force against right. Every where an unnarrateable oppression has weighed upon the people; every where the coward has trampled on the brave, the vile upon the noble, the enslaved upon the freehearted; and thanks to this age, we have seen glutting as vampires on their prey, Russia on Poland, Prussia on the Rhine, the Diet of Frankfort upon Germany, England upon Ireland, Austria upon Italy, and the Juste Milieu* upon France.

"The murder of Poland and its abandonment by France,

Here is a strange jumble of legal and medical questions. Where nations infringe the rights of other nations it is a matter on which the laws have to decide-the law of all law-international law; but where it is an internal question it is no longer a matter of public law but of internal confusion and complaint. Ireland with reference to England is no more a question of nation in respect to nation, than is the question of the parliamentary majority in France of the juste milieu. It would be saying much indeed for France and England if it was only Ireland that could be brought against the one, and the Juste Milieu against the other. The crime of France was not the juste milieu, but-Algeria! England's crime was co-operation with Russia-secret, indeed, at the time this was written, but of which the deadly fruits have appeared in Affghanis tan, Syria, China, Scinde, &c.-ED. P.